Month: May 2014

Project Management (2013) Certification Achieved!

Since the end of the semester is here, but the summer semester hasn’t begun, I’ve decided that the time is right for me to cover some certification bases. Project Management is a skill that one can never seem to get enough training in. My PMP (Project Management Professional)training was some time ago, and the last project management update I received was related to the changes made in 2008 related to the PMP testing changes.

With this empty time, I’m currently working on a grant with one of my co-workers (gamification of collegiate courses by Tyler Dockery, MAEd and Nicolas D’Agata, MSEd). Before the time for the summer semester is heavy upon me, I took today to get some of those updates to the PMP knowledge base under my skin so that I can be better prepared for the future.

Glad to know that all of my studying paid off, perhaps I wont need another upgrade for a few years now.

MS Windows 8 Desktop Administration Certification Achieved!

Since the end of the semester is here, but the summer semester hasn’t begun, I’ve decided that the time is right for me to cover some certification bases. Windows 8 has been with us for some time, but I have had a hard time answering questions about it in the ILC at Wake Tech Community College. It was probably time for me to get up to speed on this.

With this empty time, I’m currently working on a grant with one of my co-workers (gamification of collegiate courses by Tyler Dockery, MAEd and Nicolas D’Agata, MSEd). I’ve been looking into information on WIndows 8 over the last week or so in my downtime, as well as brushing up on project management specifics.

Glad to know that all of my studying paid off in spades. Think I’ll do much better in the ILC because of this

Monday Morning Leadership is a book by David Cottrell about leading your team, cutting out the non-important things in your daily routine, and doing the right thing. I was given this book by Chris Knotts, Director of Enterprise Marketing at ASPE, Inc, and old friend of mine even before I took on a role at Knotts and Associates.

This book was an excellent read, outlining multiple ideas of leadership in 8 short sessions. It was very interesting to see the ideas represented in this book when looking back at my leadership training in the past (most recently the word “pity party” used in the ECGC leadership sessions. (you can choose leadership or ECGC from the tags menu to access all leadership training and ECGC articles at any time 🙂 ).

One of the most important things I took away from this book was the idea that you need to keep the Main Thing The Main Thing. And, surprisingly, the main thing for Wake Tech, the college I teach at, is 3 things:

Provide the best, most comprehensive, and excellent programs that we can

Provide our Students, Faculty, and Staff with the tools they need to succeed and excel

Provide educated, trained individuals into the local community workforce

If we aren’t doing the first, we can hardly be doing the second. If we aren’t doing the second, there is no way we are doing the third.

I have actually read this book through twice, and I think I’ll read it again. Strongest revelation I found in this book: Being a leader is as far above being a manager as a manager is above a worker. This can easily be seen in terms of drivers and passengers in a car. The whole team is set on a direction, with a similar vision, but it is the leader’s responsibility to get them there. The passengers have the freedom to talk, listen to loud music, goof off, sleep, surf the web on their phones, but the driver has to get everyone to the destination safely, and preferably on time. The decisions the leader makes are different ones, and there is certainly more responsibility, but also the freedoms of the driver are reduced as well.

I will be reading this off and on to help with my leadership qualities. The author also recommends taking some time out to read other books on management and leadership. If you set aside a half-chapter a night devoted to leadership, you’re likely to get in a book a month- 12 a year. In 15 years, that’s about 150 books. Can I become a better leader simply by reading books and taking actions?

This year, I was selected again as a Juror for the 2014 Internet Advertising Competition presented by the Web Marketing Association (WMA).

MobileWebAward 2014 Competition Juror: Tyler Dockery

This week, I received this message after working furiously on entrants:

Welcome to the 2014 Internet Advertising Competition Judging.

The MobileWebAward judging process will begin today and will run until all the sites have been reviewed by three or more judges. We expect this to run until early May if necessary.

The judging of the 2014 MobileWebAward Competition is well underway and more than half of the entries have already received the necessary scores. The deadline for completing your assigned entries is Friday May 4th, so keep up your great work to complete your judging task.

In this competition, I judged many, many applicants. In the final round, I judged over 30 applicants. This was a fantastic competition, and I thoroughly enjoyed participating and representing both Wake Tech Community College and Dockery Design.